Last Week Tonight Charity Auction Sparks Record $1 Million Bid

An original Bob Ross painting crossed the $1 million mark as John Oliver’s charity auction for public media entered its halfway mark—a staggering figure that sets a new benchmark for the late PBS icon’s work and transforms what began as a late-night stunt into one of the year’s most surprising art stories.

The landscape painting, created on-air during an episode of The Joy of Painting and supplied by the Ross estate for the Last Week Tonight auction, is the headline item among the 65 lots Oliver unveiled in the show’s Season 12 finale. The sale benefits the Public Media Bridge Fund, created to support public TV and radio stations scrambling to stay solvent following the Trump administration’s rollback of federal CPB funding.

Ross pieces have rarely been available on the open market, but recent sales have shown explosive demand, with collectors driving prices well beyond historical norms. Oliver’s high-profile platform—paired with the beneficiary of public media—appears to have supercharged that momentum. The million-dollar bid easily eclipses past Ross records and positions the painting to finish as one of the most expensive works ever associated with a PBS personality.

And the Ross frenzy isn’t the only surprise. Several other big-ticket items have emerged in the auction’s first four days, including the chance to appear in an over-the-shoulder shot on a future episode—now topping $100,000—and the towering sculptural rendering of Lyndon B. Johnson’s self-described anatomy, which has already cleared $25,000.

The rest of Oliver’s auction offers a deep cut through 12 seasons of the show’s signature oddities, including more recent memorabilia, including signed bottles of Oliver’s limited edition Cabernet SauvignJohn wine, and an assortment of Erie Moon Mammoths gear.

Bidding remains open through Monday, Nov. 24, at johnoliversjunk.com. With totals climbing across the catalog, the auction seems poised to finish well above initial projections—and to hand Oliver one more unlikely punchline when his HBO series returns for Season 13 in February.

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